Imagine living in a house where a famous movie or television show was filmed. Or sleeping under the same roof that a Duchess or former president once stayed. There are two Guilford homes that fit the bill, and they’re up for auction next month.

The first house is located at 4001 Greenway and is used in the final season of the Netflix series House of Cards where the show spent 10 months filming. The tudor-style house has a total of 52 rooms including seven bedrooms with six-and-a-half bathrooms.

“It’s an awesome house, but it takes a long time to show it,” jokes realtor Noah Mumaw of Monument Sotheby’s Realty. “I think it’s pretty cool to say you live in a house where House of Cards filmed their final season.”

The starting bid for the home that was also formerly the A.S. Abell Estate and home to the founder of The Baltimore Sun in the 1850s is $900,000. The original property was 300 acres that was eventually broken up into what is now the town of Guilford.

“This was back in the day when this was considered the county, which is kind of funny,” Mumaw said. “The house is in really good shape—the original moldings are still in tact. It’s so awesome that such a prominent family used to live here.”

Just a few blocks away is another house that fell into Mumaw’s lap that has a unique history. “The cool thing about this house is the different owners that lived here,” he said. The colonial house at 4105 Underwood Road sits on more than one-acre of land—which is a lot for Guilford—and has had everyone from inventors to the son of a U.S. president live here.

This home was originally built in 1922 for Otto Dieffenbach, who invented the drinking straw. The home was then sold to the Taliaferro family who founded the American Can Company. From there, it was sold to Clarence Miles, the founding partner of the law firm Miles & Stockbridge, who brought the St. Louis Browns to Baltimore and named them the Baltimore Orioles. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor also frequently visited the home as they were close friends of the Miles family.

Bruce Livie was next on the long list of famous owners of this house. Livie was one of the founders of the Baltimore Colts and brought them to Memorial Stadium that was once located on 33rd Street (makes sense because the house was walking distance from the stadium).

The Underwood house is up for auction, as well, and the opening bid starts at $450,000. Aside from its famous owners, it has seven bedrooms, six-and-half bathrooms, six working fireplaces, and a black-bottom pool in the backyard.

“I think that’s the coolest thing about this house is all the unique owners who found their way to this house over the course of history,” Mumaw said. “It’s crazy how it keeps going on and on. For one house to have one of these owners would be very special, but to have four or five of these unique owners, I’ve never seen anything like it before. This would be comparable to winning the Mega Millions.”

HAPPY PLACE: The vision for the room was to create a refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city. Our goal was to find warm and comfortable pieces to create a place where we could relax. 

COMFORT ZONE: The space was pretty bare when we got it. Normally, we tend to gravitate towards mid-century modern stuff but it’s typically not the coziest style, so we went with things that were cozier to lounge in. It’s definitely a touch bohemian, and then the plan was to add a lot of greenery to bring in more color. 

LIFE CHANGING: We wanted there to be some life in the room so we got hanging plants from B. Willow in Remington. We also found this vintage birdcage that we stuck a fern into and it’s since thrived so we’ve kept it there. 

UNDER THE INFLUENCE: We follow local stores like Wishbone Reserve in Mt. Washington, Cedar and Cotton in Southwest Baltimore, and Off Main in Catonsville on Instagram. They are always inspiring us with different pieces and design ideas. 

SITTING PRETTY: The rocking chair is an old Eames rocking chair. We aren’t sure how old it is but my guess would be that it was made in the sixties. We found it at Home Anthology in Catonsville! 

CUT A RUG: The carpet is a hundred-year-old Kazak rug from Wishbone Reserve. We loved how vibrant it was and how the pattern had blues and greens in it, which is hard to find. It’s more geometric and tribal, which makes it unique from all of the floral patterns you typically see. However, when we got it, it had some tears and a hole in it. The excellent folks at Main Street Oriental in Ellicott City did an absolutely wonderful job of repairing it. They even matched the pattern and workmanship and their work probably doubled the value of the piece. 

TABLE IT: The table (also from Wishbone Reserve—Julie has a great eye!) is pretty unusual. It’s stone with little pebbles encased on a resin top, so it’s really earthy and free-flowing as far as shapes. We don’t like anything that has lines that are too rigid. 

SHED LIGHT ON: We recently put curtains up in the room to keep it cooler during the summer months. Finding curtains that had a little texture and were sheer enough to diffuse light through was difficult. We ended up going with a Belgian flax fabric from Pottery Barn. 

As you trace the footsteps of Baltimore’s literary luminaries—Poe, Mencken, etc.—on the Maryland Humanities Council’s Mt. Vernon walking tour—you move from brownstone to brownstone. Range farther afield and the city’s diverse architecture becomes apparent, from narrow row houses to Guilford’s stately mansions.

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Penrose Street

The classic photo of women and children scrubbing their marble steps—a trademark of Baltimore architecture made possible by the high-quality white marble quarried in Cockeysville—was shot by renowned Baltimore Sun photographer A. Aubrey Bodine. Done properly, the ritual marble stoop cleaning process included scrubbing with a pumice stone and Bon Ami powder.

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Canton Row Homes

In the early 1900s, the neighborhood’s row houses were home to Irish and Eastern Europeans who worked at the port and canneries.

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Guilford

Each home in this old-money neighborhood possesses its own distinct charm.

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Old-School Artforms

In 1913, a Czech immigrant grocer named William Oktavec painted his screen door. Soon, neighbors requested he paint their front window screens, and over time, the folk art became synonymous with Baltimore’s blue-collar, Formstone-sided row houses.

(Photo by Anna Pasqualucci)

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Charles Village

The now-ubiquitous “Painted Ladies” of Charles Village have only been around for 16 years, dating to a neighborhood painting contest inspired by the famous Victorian homes of San Francisco.

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That was then, this is now

Billie Holiday’s Street

At Durham and Pratt streets, there’s a new, four-story mural of Billie Holiday, who grew up on this Upper Fells Point block. Leading to her childhood home down the street is a mosaic of the blues singer in full voice——white plates forming the iconic gardenias she wore in her hair. The work, which portrays waves of sound morphing into bluebirds as the piece moves toward her former front door, is part of a larger effort to memorialize “Lady Day” in her former neighborhood.

(Photo by David Colwell)

We’ve all heard the cliché: Everybody comes back to Baltimore eventually.

And so it was, too, for former Baltimore Symphony Orchestra public relations vice president Greg Tucker and his wife, Catherine, who, after living in The Hague for seven years, where he worked as a senior vice president for insurance and asset-management giant Aegon, decided it was time to move their family of five back to Charm City.

But the international relocation was not the only thing on their to-do list: To ratchet up the stress, the Tuckers tossed in the search for, purchase of, and renovation of a historic Guilford home—all while still living nearly 4,000 miles away. 

The first step, obviously, was to find that new home, since the one they’d left in Bolton Hill in 2006 was now being rented out. The Bolton Hill home, once owned by piano great Leon Fleisher, held special significance for Greg, 51, who’s also a classical pianist. So what they really wanted was a property with comparable architecture and charm.

Viewing homes online helped narrow the possibilities, but an Internet search can only go so far. A decision this big required a trip or two from the Netherlands to Baltimore to actually walk through, and get the feel for, some prospective homes.

With the help of a Realtor, they began the first of two whirlwind tours. The first foray yielded nothing that excited them much, and things were not looking too good during the second go-round either—until the last stop. It was a home the Tuckers had first spotted online, and was near three other homes they had looked at. Walking in the front door, they both sensed something special—Greg recalls thinking, “This is it.”

Located in Guilford, the historic home, designed by Palmer and Lamdin (the original framed blueprints, dated 1929, came with the house) had just about everything the Tuckers were looking for, including a place for Greg’s piano and space to create a dream kitchen for Catherine, an avid cook known for her dinner parties. And for Greg, the home “evoked a bit of Europe.”

“When I first saw it, it had a friendly feeling, with great workmanship, beautifully designed rooms, and nice proportions,” recalls Catherine, 45. “It felt gracious and liveable.”

One of the wonderful attributes of the home is that so many apparently original details remained untouched. The brass sconces in the dining room, the iron work of the banister on the main staircase, and the marble fireplaces all harken back to the 1920s.

While Greg was concerned it would “require more work than I had the stomach for,” both he and Catherine could see the home’s potential. While the process of managing a renovation from overseas would have its challenges, the benefit was that they could tackle projects without having to live in a construction zone. But with modifications dating from 1954 and 1962 that needed to be undone, and a kitchen last touched in the 1970’s, the question was how to tap the home’s potential and still make the deadline for their move back to Baltimore.

Enter Tim Hartman of Architectural Classics, who Greg calls a “a lifesaver,” likening him to Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life.

“Tim was very approachable, already had great ideas on the first day we met, and was enthusiastic about the home,” says Catherine. Having started out as a cabinet maker—a skill he continues to hone—Hartman worked his way toward historic renovations and now, after nearly 30 years, has plenty of experience under his belt. Passionate about his work, Hartman focuses on developing a collaborative relationship with the homeowner, and has kept his company on the smaller side so that he can provide a high level of service. And he knew dozens of specialist subcontractors he could pull in on short notice.

Hartman started by asking the Tuckers questions about how their family—the couple has two daughters, 16 and 18, and a son, 11—would use the space, now and into the future. Catherine points out that Hartman’s work is “a reflection of who he is. He has a high standard and knows quality.” Greg had always promised Catherine a “kitchen worthy of her talents” and, after 20 years of marriage, it was time to deliver on that promise.

Hailing from Louisiana, Catherine knows good food and loves to cook. She has always enjoyed being in the kitchen and it’s been a passion of hers to introduce her children to good cooking. “Cooking is an everyday part of our lives” she says. Which is why that aspect of the renovation was so crucial to her. Catherine “wanted a family-friendly space, but in tune with the style of the house,” she says.

When Catherine and Greg purchased the home, what had been a garage in the original Palmer and Lamdin design was in use as a family/laundry room. Greg’s first thought was, “You can either turn it back into a garage or make it a real open space.”

Connected to the kitchen by a narrow doorway, the room was part of the house but not of the house. The challenge was to connect the former garage to the kitchen in a meaningful way, in order to create a space where the family could gather, and where Catherine could work her culinary magic. And then there was the issue of making the staple-up ceiling, indoor/outdoor “grass” carpeting, and wood paneling go away.

And so, the process of renovating the kitchen and den began—along with a few other projects from an ocean away. Using a photo-sharing website, e-mail, and conference calls, Hartman and the Tuckers worked through the details of the project. Hartman presented the Tuckers with several options and budgets, tweaking and revising as he received input from them. The Tuckers were clear from the outset that they did not want to lose any rooms or alter the architecture of the home, and decisions were made with those goals in mind.

While the Tuckers agree that working through the details from overseas went surprisingly smoothly, there came a time when phone calls and technology had exhausted their usefulness—there was no substitute for standing in the space. So Catherine made a trip a few months later, accompanied by her sister-in-law, who is an interior designer. On this inspection tour, the focus was on paint colors and other interior design choices, as well as on what elements the kitchen should contain, “given that I wanted very much for the kitchen to have a timeless quality,” says Catherine.

The original kitchen area featured a narrow, adjacent room which held a breakfast nook and butler’s pantry. In order to more efficiently use this space, the wall separating the two rooms was removed, incorporating the pantry space into a much larger and more open kitchen.

An earlier iteration of Hartman’s plans included the elimination of a back staircase. In the original Palmer and Lamdin design, this was the service stairwell that descended from upstairs, made a turn, and led directly into the center of the kitchen. It was decided to keep the staircase, but rather than having it lead to the center of the kitchen, it now descends straight to the former pantry area, creating a warm, inviting entrance to the kitchen from the upstairs.
The service stairwell continued from the kitchen to the basement and was located near the doorway leading into the former garage. In order to maintain the integrity of the new, larger kitchen, this stairwell was removed and ingress between the kitchen and the basement was closed off. Hartman then opened up the space to connect to the den and kitchen, adding built-in counter space and storage cabinets where the stairwell had been. How to access the basement with the removal of the old stairwell? It was ingeniously relocated to a superfluous closet in the main foyer.

The new open kitchen accommodates a wine refrigerator and center island, and has a natural flow.

Catherine also now has plenty of storage space for her equipment in the kitchen, including built-in cabinets.

While the kitchen and den were the main focus of the renovation, Hartman worked room by room to bring the whole house into move-in condition, while staying true to the original historic aspects.

The exterior needed some work as well, with peeling paint on the window frames and shutters, minor roof repairs, and a 1920s-style reflecting pool in the garden that was alive with green algae. The symmetrical facade of the home was partially obstructed by two enormous holly trees flanking the central entry. 

Hartman removed these to reveal the ornately scrolled ironwork covering the lower and upper windows.

While Hartman worked to “get the outside bolstered tight,” there was also the tiny detail of asbestos in old ductwork and wrapped around old piping in the basement. The aging electrical system needed upgrades, as well. The schedule took a minor hit with the necessary removal of the asbestos, and the addition of the new wiring, but the project continued to move forward.

The Tuckers arrived in August ahead of their belongings, which would follow four weeks later. Having been away during so much of the process, Catherine indicated that it felt like they were on a reality home-renovation show, and she couldn’t wait for “the big reveal.” When that day came, they were hardly disappointed.

Thirty years ago, Catherine remembers her parents renovated the kitchen of their 1880’s New Iberia, LA, home, and, ever since, she has wanted a kitchen just like her mother’s. She finally has it, and in the end, the renovation as a whole turned out perfectly, too, absentee owners and all. The secret to success? Greg again credits Hartman, saying the key was “having someone who can work with you”—even from 3,800 miles away.